


Innocent

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 08:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6797191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay but hear me out...instead of being frozen again...Bucky goes to therapy and is in love with Steve Rogers. That is all</p><p>A story about flitting around islands and getting fruit salad</p>
            </blockquote>





	Innocent

It’s hard to tell him he’s innocent. It’s hard to touch his milk white skin and the place where the metal ends on his arm and say, ‘no. It’s okay, it’s okay. It wasn’t you.’

But he would cry every time, ‘it was. It was.’

Steve would have to just shake his head, he knew on some level Bucky might never believe him, and maybe no one else would either. That’s why Steve was there.

 

He would curl up around him at night and the feel the difference in their size for once, he wasn’t 16 again with stick thin arms and a sinking chest cavity that never filled with air properly.

He was over 100 in proper terms, but they both were, so he curls around and whispers to him in English, even when Bucky broke into Russian and mouthed gibberish.

“You’re okay.” He pressed kisses across his jawline every other night and tried to say again, and again, until the meaning sunk in or it just became a meaningless mantra.

“You have Sharon.” He might try to push him away sometimes.

But Steve would always shake his head with a smile, “I have you.”   
  


 

T’Challa would visit, Sam would visit, they would eat fruit salad on the island and on the good days joke about running into the hulk in a Hawaiian shirt and trying to do yoga.

Bucky would laugh and God it became his favorite sound.

Sam and Bucky would eye each other and Steve would roll his eyes and watch as Bucky would ask for a glass of milk and Sam would bring him straight vodka. Bucky would swig it down in one gulp without his eyes leaving Sam’s. It was the weirdest thing Steve had seen.

T’Challa would stand stoically in their front door, say some polite words and watch with them whatever American movies were on and give a low laugh at any of the jokes.

He had on his shoulders a nation and Steve could see a lot of himself in the man. Or maybe he just wanted to.

Nat would swing by like she was lost and just happened to come by in the middle of the night, sometimes with a black eye and a quick one-liner. She never stayed long, always somewhere to be and ‘ass to kick.’

Steve thinks Bucky likes her, she speaks Russian at him sometimes and they eat some sort of cabbage soup and most likely mutually thought of the cold and the war and thinking for yourself.

The others were ghosts that came and went, but Bucky was real, he was always real.

 

And then every night, every night, and in the morning, he’d send him to the women with the milky white eyes and the ear for listening.

When they found this little enclave it was a small place with water in all directions and just the advice, ‘there was a former enhanced who would help.’

She would understand. And Steve would take Bucky to someone who would listen and he would come back sobbing. 

Steve sometimes wished Tony would visit, just to see him again and make sure he hadn’t drank himself into a stupor, or maybe Steve just stupidly wanted some sort of forgiveness. He’d chuckle to himself and ask maybe he should see this ‘enhanced therapist’ as well, he doesn’t but he could.

 

 

Bucky comes back from one session on a Monday and he’s smiling.

Steve raises an eyebrow from his perch lifting weights in the living room, “good therapy session?”   
  
Bucky nods, “I don’t think supergod's or whatever we are, are supposed to have therapists.”

 

“What would you call it?” Steve gets up and takes his place at the table.

 

“Therapy.” Bucky smiles and shrugs and Steve’s heart flutters like the war wasn’t over and the 30’s had just past.

“Sam is coming by tomorrow.” Steve announces.

Bucky heaves a sigh, “tell him, ‘Hawk Eye would never.’ He’ll get it.”   
  
Steve shakes his head, “can’t you guys get along?”   
  
“What are we talking about? He loves me.” Bucky pours himself cereal with one hand.

Steve is chuckling, “yeah, tell that to the hole in our ceiling.”   
  
“He shouldn’t cheat at monopoly!”   
  
“Right.” Steve hands him a spoon and Bucky eats some sort of sugary concoctions for children. “Sugar Bomb’s Ahoy?” He reads the box.

Bucky shrugs once more, “they fed me out of bags or just some sort of brown bread,” he wrinkles his nose, “Lucy said I should do something they never would have let me.” He holds up the spoon, “so cheers.”   
  
“Cheers.”   
  
He crunches away at the children’s cereal and Steve hums to himself and reads the paper- which was always hard, since he couldn’t do much about that day’s alien invasion or Dr. Doom rampage.

Bucky got up from the table, washed to the dish, he was getting quiet good at doing everything for himself. 

 

He walked back over and Steve hears him inhale deeply, he looks up just in time to feel Bucky press a kiss into his cheek.

 

Steve touches the place, “what was that?”   
  
“Something they wouldn’t let me do.” He announces.   
  


Steve kisses him back, like they are 16 again.

Bucky pushes him away when he goes for the lips, like that night they were 15 and the furnace was out and hey maybe Steve would kick this bucket this time around if he got any colder.

And Bucky laces their fingers together, Steve tries to kiss him on the mouth, “not yet." He whispers. "I don’t deserve it.” He mumbles.

 

Steve leans in and taps their foreheads together, “you do.” His voice croaks. “You weren’t you.”   
  
Bucky looks at his fingertips, “maybe I never will be.” He sounds bitter, “I’m not who I was Steve.”   
  
“I know.” He kisses him on the mouth, nipping at his lip and tasting metallic and something distinctly sweet, “you think I’m the kind of guy to not mind a little change?”   
  
Bucky chuckles and holds on to him harder.

  
They flit around the island and eat fruit salad and try to hold on to this whole ‘recovery thing.’ And the nights are long, and he curls up around Bucky and lets him mumble in Russian and wake up in cold sweats and hold him as they keep trying. 


End file.
